Tallis, the young bee hero of the story, desperately wants to be a soldier and guard the queen of the hive. Unfortunately, he does not have a stinger in his tail and instead, has to serve as a lowly worker. Through a stroke of luck and his own ingenuity, he acquires a thorn and fixes it to his rear end, then learns to wield it like a sword. His efforts to join the elite guards is once again rejected, but he overhears a terrible plot hatched by the wasps to overthrow the queen and wreck the hive. His warning alarm is ignored by the guards and he has to rely solely on his friends, his fellow workers, to try to overcome the attack. The bees are outnumbered by their larger antagonists and things look grim for them, forcing Tallis to use his secret weapon.